Eleanor (44 page)

She arrived in Los Angeles on a Sunday—“swooped” was the way one columnist described her descent upon the convention city—made her first speech for Stevenson within an hour after leaving the plane, attended the party dinner where she was cheered lustily, and then prepared for a Monday press conference during which her associates hoped she might be able to repeat her devastating 1956 performance when she had stopped the Harriman bandwagon dead in its tracks. But circumstances were considerably different. Kennedy—not Stevenson—was the front runner and, in fact, was almost sure of first-ballot nomination. The politicians did not want a two-time loser, and Stevenson himself was a reluctant candidate, whose emissaries, according to Franklin Jr., were bringing word to the Kennedy people that he was embarrassed by the whole movement in his behalf, but that he could not let down his most devoted followers.

Stevenson escorted Mrs. Roosevelt to her press conference. “For an articulate man, Stevenson seemed embarrassed in introducing her,” commented N. R. Howard, contributing editor to the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
. He spoke of her as “Ambassador to the world. . . .I saw people in London take off their hats as she rode by. . .,” and ended, almost precipitately, “Sorry I cannot remain, another engagement takes me instantly away.”

She arose and embraced the crowd of reporters in the smile that suggested there was no other place she would rather be. At that smile, wrote Howard, “the applause became a roar of welcome.”

“Now, the first question,” she began. Three about Kennedy were immediately shouted at her, “and she set forth to plunge the tomahawk which for so many years she has wielded so prettily.” She admired and respected Kennedy. She had said all along the perfect Democratic ticket for a great Democratic year would be Stevenson and Kennedy. It would combine age and youth, wisdom and heroism. But—as a candidate for president, well, she was doubtful Kennedy could command Negro support, and without the Negro vote could the Democrats win? The doubts really troubled her.

Then she answered the question about the impact of the Catholic issue on Kennedy’s candidacy. So far it had not worked to Kennedy’s disadvantage, she began in an allusion to the strong organizational support that had rallied to him just because of his Catholicism. But she could not say what would happen when the opposition, with its well-known ruthlessness, began to exploit it in the rural areas and in the South. “Just six sentences,” commented columnist Howard, “spoken almost like a grandmother, and Senator Kennedy had been hatcheted twice.”

She was asked about her Kennedy-supporting sons. Her answer, wrote Howard, suggested “the plight of a mother who knows best but who like all mothers must sigh and sit back at the idiocies of youth.” She had asked James and Franklin Jr., “Isn’t this really too much of a jump even for a brilliant young man like John Kennedy?” They had refused to argue with her, she went on, although she was unable, however, to suppress a flash of pride over Franklin’s foray into West Virginia. “He did a very good job for Senator Kennedy there.”

“President Truman? I am sorry Mr. Truman isn’t here. A Democratic convention each four years is a religious thing and he should be at it. . . .”

After she had exhausted the reporters’ questions, she thanked them, took off the heavy spectacles that contained her hearing aid, shook some hands, and left. “Eleanor Roosevelt, 75,” wrote
Howard, who as a “kid reporter” had covered Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt on their arrival in Cleveland in the 1920 campaign, “might not see another Democratic convention. . . .She was a tall pillar of some quality no one else in our time has produced. . . .”
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The Stevenson movement had few delegates but it put on a great show. Delegates were inundated with telegrams. There were wild pro-Stevenson demonstrations in the streets outside the convention hall and pandemonium within when Stevenson entered. Eugene McCarthy made a memorable speech placing Stevenson in nomination. The Kennedy camp was nervous. Reuther came to Mrs. Roosevelt and said if Stevenson came out for Kennedy it would cinch his appointment as secretary of state and keep Johnson from slipping in. He made a plausible case, she told him, but it was up to Stevenson, not her. She would continue to fight until Stevenson himself asked her to desist. Reuther went to Stevenson, as she had urged him to do, but she heard nothing further from him, from which she concluded that he had not persuaded Stevenson to withdraw.
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The night before the balloting she went to eleven state caucuses, ending up at the makeshift Stevenson headquarters, where a rip-snorting, enthusiastic rally led by Bill Benton was under way. “There was Eleanor Roosevelt, fine, precise, hard-worked like ivory,” reported Norman Mailer. “Her voice was almost attractive as she explained in the firm, sad tones of the first lady in this small town why she could not admit Mr. Kennedy, who was no doubt a gentleman, into her political house.” The Stevenson candidacy alone was stirring delegates’ emotions, but demonstrations were not indicative of the delegate count. The smoothly functioning Kennedy organization had the nomination locked up. She was as popular and beloved as ever. When she came into the convention hall, all heads turned, people stood up and there was an ovation. She quickly took her seat and began fiddling with her purse. David nudged her. “It’s for you. You have to get up.” Under protest she did, but sat down quickly. It was rude to interrupt the speaker on the platform, she said, and later wrote him an apology.
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The steam roller could not be stopped. Unlike 1956, this time
her prestige and authority, the reverence in which the party held her, did not change votes. When Nannine Joseph congratulated her on her convention performance, she commented, “Didn’t do much good, did it?” As soon as Kennedy scored his first-ballot victory, she decided there was nothing more for her to do in Los Angeles. She called her old friend Tiny (Mrs. Hershey Martin), with whom she had left her bags, and asked her to bring them out to the airport. She was cross and resentful. David Lilienthal thought she had left the convention hall “almost in tears.” Rank-and-file Democratic sentiment, she felt, had not been accurately reflected by the delegates. In the New York caucus Lehman and Finletter were able to muster only 4.5 votes for Stevenson. She was sure that a much larger proportion of New York Democrats preferred him, but De Sapio had held the other delegates “captive.” But there was more to her discontent than that. She was exasperated with Stevenson’s indecisiveness in neither telling her to stop nor ever saying clearly to go ahead. She had not wished to be in opposition to her sons. She was also upset with herself. Perhaps in her distrust of Kennedy she had pushed Adlai into a position he did not wish to occupy and hurt his chances of becoming secretary of state. Moreover, just as she had observed that Truman had done himself harm with his press conference, so she knew that she had weakened her influence by her Los Angeles performance, and she cared about her influence.
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Abba Schwartz, learning of her hasty departure, got word to Kennedy and, sensing her angry mood, urged him to call her quickly. When she reached the airport, the manager was waiting. There was an urgent call for her from Senator Kennedy. She refused to take it. But her plane was not scheduled to leave for an hour, Kennedy persisted, and finally she relented. She went to the phone. He did not have to bother about her, she told him. He had more important matters to worry about. They did not have to talk together. Any messages he wanted to get to her, he could send through Franklin and she the same with him.
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If the draft movement did embarrass Stevenson, he gave no sign of it in the affectionate letter he sent her from Ruth Field’s place in Maine after the convention. He spoke gratefully of the outpouring
of loyalty and love that had manifested itself in Los Angeles and even referred to it as his “finest hour.” He had gone to Hyannis Port, he reported, for a long and often interrupted talk with Kennedy, who asked him to campaign for him and asked his advice on various organizational problems, but there was little discussion of issues. Kennedy had said nothing about the State Department, and neither had he.
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Some of Stevenson’s most ardent backers had not been happy with his response to the draft movement. “Herbert [Lehman] was fighting for Stevenson at a time when Stevenson was not fighting for himself,” Mrs. Lehman observed. “Stevenson wanted it in 1960, but I don’t think he enjoyed a fight. My husband always felt it was hard for Stevenson to make up his mind.” Mrs. Roosevelt shared some of Governor Lehman’s feeling that a lack of decisiveness had been behind Stevenson’s ambiguous performance before and at Los Angeles—holding back personally, yet permitting friends like herself and Lehman to carry the ball. She was not overjoyed when she later heard that he had not wanted the draft movement, but could not tell Mrs. Roosevelt to desist.
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She may have been disappointed with Adlai but she declined to join Herbert Lehman as honorary chairman of Kennedy’s committee in New York until she had a chance to talk with Kennedy and ascertain how closely he intended to work with Stevenson and Bowles, especially in the foreign-affairs field. “Dear Adlai,” she advised him on receiving his letter:

I’m seeing Kennedy on Tuesday & I hope he’ll not talk only about getting the vote in Nov. but also about what he hopes to achieve if elected. He’s got a hard fight here & in California & I wish people who meet him didn’t feel he is such a cold & calculating person.
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Kennedy was elated when Mrs. Roosevelt agreed to receive him, and also apprehensive. “Will, you’ve got to go with me,” he said to William Walton, the artist, who was his New York coordinator. Walton demurred, “This is just a meeting between you two.
” “It’s the raft at Tilsit,” Kennedy replied, referring to the meeting between the czar and Napoleon that resulted in the Treaty of Tilsit, “and I want an ally with me.”

They went up to Hyde Park on a Sunday. On Saturday, John Roosevelt’s daughter Sally had been killed falling off a horse and Kennedy offered to cancel the meeting, but she said to come ahead. Kennedy and Walton arrived at the cottage “thinking that she had a price for her support, and that it was the Secretaryship of State for Adlai Stevenson. Not at all. She quickly made a little speech saying that she thought all Presidents should be totally free to choose their own Cabinets, that no one should be committed in advance to any office of any kind. She said, ‘And I believe that very sincerely.’”

Kennedy left Val-Kill “absolutely smitten by this woman,” Walton reported. “She really wove her web around him. . .from then on she did everything for us she possibly could.”
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She sent a lengthy report on the visit to some of Stevenson’s closest friends and hers:

I had my talk with Senator Kennedy yesterday—an hour alone during lunch, and at the very end he called in Mr. (William) Walton for a few minutes before going over to address the Golden Ring Clubs. . . .

I did not ask the Senator for any definite promise as I felt that this would be almost impossible. But I told him that he needed the Stevenson votes in New York and California and that he had to carry these two states or he would be in trouble because he probably could not hold the Solid South. . . .

I gather that his understanding of the difficulties of the campaign that face him have matured him in a short time. He told me that he had phoned Adlai this past week and asked him to set up a small group to do research in the area of foreign policy. I told him that this was not enough, that he would have to give the people who were for Adlai the assurance that they were working together. All of us know that unless Adlai felt their philosophies were similar he would not accept the Secretary of State post. Therefore, I felt that he had to prove
by working in the campaign and appearing on the same platforms, and perhaps by references and quotation, that there was close cooperation. Bringing both Chester Bowles and Adlai in whenever he could would mean that these were the men he was counting on for advice. He agreed and said he would try to do this. . . .

Now, I have no promises from the Senator, but I have the distinct feeling that he is planning on working closely with Adlai. I also had the feeling that here was a man who could learn. I liked him better than I ever had before because he seemed so little cocksure, and I think he has a mind that is open to new ideas.

I agreed that I would go on the citizens committee here as honorary chairman, and that I would do what I could here. Whether I would take any trips or become more involved would depend on whether or not I was happy with the way he progresses as a person in the campaign.

My final judgment now is that here is a man who wants to leave a record (perhaps for ambitious personal reasons as people say) but I rather think because he really is interested in helping the people of his own country and mankind in general. I will be surer of this as time goes on, but I think I am not mistaken in feeling that he would make a good President if elected.
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She sent a copy of this letter to Kennedy, saying it had gone to Mary Lasker and Ruth Field and that she had reported verbally to Agnes Meyer, Anna Rosenberg, and Robert Benjamin. She would hear from Franklin Jr. about Kennedy’s feelings on his visit to Hyde Park and if there was anything outside New York Kennedy wanted her to do. Meanwhile, she was speaking at a press conference of the New York Citizens Committee for Kennedy and for the citizens’ committee in the Bronx which was headed by Robert Morgenthau. She advised Kennedy to call Anna Rosenberg. “She will be twice as anxious to work for you if she feels that you personally have contacted her and consider her help important.”

Kennedy thanked her. He had talked with Anna Rosenberg as
she had suggested. He had some thoughts for the campaign, which Franklin would be able to pass on to her. He looked forward to another meeting with her,

when we can discuss further some of the important issues. Again, let me assure you that I intend to work in close association with Adlai and Chester Bowles and I am delighted that you are willing to take an active part in the campaign. . . .
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